The Campo from above
The whole shell-shaped square directly below.
H005 โ Public domain ยท Myrabella โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Giorgio Galeotti โ CC BY 3.0 ยท Anila amataj โ CC BY-SA 4.0
**An 88-metre tower built to exactly equal the cathedral โ a statement that state and church stand level** โ above the Palazzo Pubblico. It was built between **1338 and 1348**, **and its height is deliberate**: **the same as Siena Cathedral's** โ **an explicit political message** that civil authority is no lesser than religious. โ **Its name is odd**: it comes from its first bell-ringer, **Giovanni di Duccio**, nicknamed **"Mangiaguadagni"** โ **"the profit-eater"**, because he squandered his wages. **So the tower is named after a spendthrift.** โ **At its foot is the Cappella di Piazza**, built as a vow after the Black Death ended. โ **The climb is 400 steps** in a narrow, steep shaft. โ **The view from the top** looks straight down on the Campo and out over the Tuscan hills.
The whole shell-shaped square directly below.
A chapel at the tower's foot vowed after the plague.
The countryside around the city from the summit.
Piazza del Campo 1, 53100 Siena, Italy
**The Facciatone to see the cathedral, the Mangia to see the Campo โ and neither gives you what the other does.** โ **The Torre del Mangia (88 m, 400 steps)**: **the higher**, and from it **you look straight down on Piazza del Campo**, the whole shell at once โ **a view you get nowhere else**; **and you see the cathedral at a distance** within the city's fabric. โ **The climb is harder**: 400 steps, a very narrow shaft and a queue. โ **The Facciatone (the unfinished cathedral front)**: **shorter and quicker**, and from it **you see the cathedral itself close up** โ its dome and its black-and-white striped campanile from a high, near angle, **the finest thing to photograph in Siena**; โ **and you see the Torre del Mangia**, the city and the hills. โ **Its spiral stair is also very narrow** and numbers are limited. โ **The rule**: **if you have only one climb, take the Facciatone** โ the view is the better picture for less effort, **and it is normally included in the cathedral's combined ticket**, so it costs you nothing extra. โ **With two days, climb both** โ at different times of day.
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